DARPA wants teams to build automated systems that would compete against each other to evaluate software, test for vulnerabilities, generate security patches and apply them to protected computers on a network. The winning team would receive a cash prize of $2 million so it is probably worth a crack.

Mike Walker, DARPA programme manager said that the agency wanted to start a revolution for information security. “Today, our time to patch a newly discovered security flaw is measured in days. Through automatic recognition and remediation of software flaws, the term for a new cyber attack may change from zero-day to zero-second,” he said.

The competition is expected to draw teams of top experts from across a wide range of computer security disciplines including reverse engineering, formal methods, program analysis and computer security competition.

To encourage widespread participation and teaming, DARPA plans to host teaming forums on the CGC website. Sarah Connor will not be admitted to the building where the competition takes place.